I don't own South Park - it's owned by the very talented Trey Parker and Matt Stone.


Leaving

by cell12

Chapter 1

My name is Eric Theodore Cartman and today is the day I finally get to leave this shit hole of a town.

All my life I have lived in a crappy mountain town in Colorado called South Park. You would not believe all the weird shit that happens here. Trust me on this.

My mother is a crack whore and not a day goes by when this fact isn't pushed into my face. I'm fat and this is used as another source of torment. I rarely get called Eric, instead I am usually addressed by my surname or by various insult names, no I won't repeat them here, mostly thought up by the Jew. Every time I'm called Cartman it reminds everyone who I am and who my mother is. I was judged to be a bad kid, by the parents of my classmates, on my first day at pre-school - as soon as they found out whose son I was.

As I say, I hate this town. Despite all the crazy shit that goes on here, nothing really changes. My mom's 'job' is dependant upon her looks and I realised around the time of my twelfth birthday that the years of heavy drug and alcohol abuse were leaving their mark. I knew that the only way I could have a good life was if I found a way to earn money myself. A childhood of failed get-rich-quick-schemes had proven to me that the only person I could rely on, when it came to money, was the one I saw in the mirror every morning.

Despite my ace skills as a performer and my magnetic charisma - I knew that, if I was in the public spotlight, all sorts of people would come crawling out of the woodwork. All desperate to make a quick buck by selling damaging stories about me to the press - stories that would scupper any burgeoning career. So instead I decided to utilise my amazing song-writing skills.

I still had contacts from my days as the front man for a Christian rock band, don't ask, so I used these to get myself an agent. For the last couple of years I have been writing songs and my agent has been selling them. I write in all sorts of genre; rock, ballads, pop, country - shit, I'll even write rap if it makes me money. My songs weren't particularly in demand at first but as I started to churn out hit after massive hit, soon I had most of the worlds top artists clambering for my songs. Fortunately for me, it's my agent who bares the brunt of this avalanche and I remain anonymous. All my songs are published under a pseudonym.

It's been deliciously ironic watching the kids I go to school with singing and dancing to my songs. I can only imagine their faces if they knew the truth - but this is one secret that I plan not to reveal. I almost burst out in laughter when Wendy (the bitch) Testaburger told everyone that one of my expertly penned numbers was her and Stan's song. 'It seems like it was written about us,' she had claimed. The song - Perfect Guy, Perfect Girl - had been written about them, only not in the way she imagined. Originally the song had been a piss-take, how watching the perfect couple made me feel sick. Obviously I had to change a few lyrics before sending it off to my agent.

The money I have earned is secured away by my accountant and lawyer - no I didn't use anyone from this hick town. The majority of it is invested in developments and shares - all chosen by me. Only a small amount is deposited in my bank account each month. One of the things I insisted upon was keeping my money away from mother. There was no way I was letting that drugged-up whore anywhere near my hard-earned cash. In the end my lawyer was able to find a way to legally cut her out of the loop. She doesn't even know about any of this and I prefer it this way.

When I started to get noticed as a song writer, I came up with an ingenious way to maximise my revenue - I would sell an artist exclusive rights to a new song for a period of three years. For three years only they could sing or preform my song. I would still get royalties on top of the exclusivity fee. The big advantage of this was that if anyone used or performed the song, the artists own lawyers would peruse them - so I didn't have to. When the three years was up, the artist would have the option to pay for a further five years exclusivity - for another hefty fee of course. My songs were making me a lot of money. Right now, even if I never wrote another song, I have a personal fortune of over thirty million dollars and my portfolio of songs is probably worth twice that again.

I often ask myself, how do I feel about other people getting famous off the back of my talents? The easy answer is to claim that it doesn't bother me - but that would be a lie. I will admit that the idea of public adoration and fame appeals to me - who doesn't appreciate an ego boost? Sadly, famous people are hounded and harassed to the brink of insanity, every inch of their lives is constantly under intense scrutiny. With my history, I don't think that I would do well under that sort of examination. I don't care if I am hated but if people really knew how bad my life has been, I would be pitied and that is something I couldn't stand.

Now you're probably wondering how I'm finally managing to ditch this crap-hole town - being still a kid half way through high school and all. It's quite simple actually, I mentioned developments - right? Well, one of them was an apartment complex just outside of Denver - no I don't own the whole complex, just half a dozen apartments in it. I was able to secure my mom the job as complex manager off the back of that purchase. Of course, she knows nothing about this. We'll be living in the apartment assigned to the manager and my six apartments will be rented out through a real estate agency. My mother is excited about her job - she thinks that her new start is thanks to an old client of hers. She's even talking about giving up the drugs and her whoring ways. That is something I'll only believe when I see it. Either was, this is a chance for me to ditch this town and ditch all the crap I have to deal with.

No-one in South Park, other than me and my mom, knows that we're leaving. I don't think I want to see how people will react to the news. Today is Friday, I'll be handing my school transfer papers in today - the last day before the holidays. The idea of making the office staff work on a day when they were planning to take things easy makes me smile. I've already packed most of my things up - except for clothes for the next couple of days and tonight, hopefully, we will be driving to our new home.

I guess, since I am leaving for good, I should use this opportunity to tell all the people in town exactly what I think of them - but why bother? I don't care about their petty lives and stupid opinions. There is no way that I am giving anyone the chance to say something hurtful to me on my last day. Even the people I hang with treat me like I'm shit - so I'm keeping things quiet. I'll even wait until the end of lunch before handing in my school transfer papers. That way there's no time for losers, like Mr Mackey the school counsellor, to get involved. The last thing I want is to be called into Mackey's office and asked how I feel about the move. There really isn't much else to say about today, except that I have to be careful not to appear too cheerful at school. Although even if I do, most people will assume that it is because it's the last day of the school year.

I sent a batch of new songs off to my agent last night and there should be some big hits amongst them. As I've already mentioned, the worlds top artists want my songs. Usually I just write what I want and let my agent pass them on to artists who fit the song. There's no point in giving a pop-style song to a country artist. However, one of my new songs is a commission. An artist, who shall remain nameless, paid me a lot of money to write a song just for her. She wanted a love song she could dedicate to her new boyfriend. Normally I would have turned her down - but we're talking an obscene amount of money, on top of the usual deal. The other songs are solid album tracks but you never know - some songs that I think are destined for massive status go nowhere and some songs that I think are only good enough for an album track are huge hits. I guess it depends on how the artist feels about the song and how it's arranged and performed.

Shit, I've spent all this time rambling on and now I'm running late for the bus. I can't wait to get, the fuck, out of this town.


Authors Note: I've been finding it hard to decide which one, of two multi-chapter stories, to work on next. I find it easier to focus on one story at a time - but which to chose?

I've decided that the easiest thing to do is let the reviewers decide. I've typed up the first chapter of each of the two stories and have posted them both at the same time with this authors note. This is strictly down to review numbers - so review your favourite, or the one you hate the least. I think a good cut-off for this is the end of March 2011 - reviews after that date won't be counted.

The original plan was to post the two stories up a couple of weeks ago. Sadly this hasn't happened because I was unable to post up any new stories. The new deadline is April 15th.

Leaving will have shorter chapters but will be updated more often - I'll try for one a week or more.

Super Hero has much longer chapters - so obviously they will take that much longer to write.

Kyman love to all my readers, cell12.